About high blood pressure

Learn about high blood pressure and its causes. 

What is high blood pressure?

When your heart beats, it pumps blood through your arteries to bring oxygen and energy to body tissues. The force of the blood against the walls of your arteries is blood pressure. Everyone needs some blood pressure to be healthy.

High blood pressure means that the pressure in your blood vessels is too high. This is also called hypertension. Constant high blood pressure can damage your blood vessels and eventually lead to various health problems.

Usually, the cause of high blood pressure is unknown and sometimes you will not show symptoms. However, there are risk factors that can contribute to high blood pressure.